


Memorial

by FitzKreiner



Category: The Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff Vandermeer
Genre: Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Body Horror, Character Study, Gen, Look this is like two steps away from being a prose poem, M/M, Questionable Science Facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FitzKreiner/pseuds/FitzKreiner
Summary: Saul remembers.
Relationships: Charlie/Saul Evans
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Memorial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marginaliana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/gifts).



> The prompt I worked with was "I'd love to see the progression from Saul's last moments at the lighthouse to his future as we see him having been transformed." This starts there, but meanders a bit to find something to explore within his various forms. Thanks for the prompt, and happy Yuletide!

> _Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. -Corinthians 13:6-7_
> 
> _That which dies shall still know life in death for all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated it shall walk the world in the bliss of not-knowing._

Remember caterpillars, little alien shapes across a TV screen sparkling with static electricity. Not just the caterpillars. Someone else there, too, in the wood-smoke scented room. A heavy comforting weight pressed warm against your side and a vague awareness of something wanting, tingling out toward the ends of your fingers.

Take a careful breath. Rest your hand on his knee and, at the back of your mind, realize that this might be the first time that you have truly felt safe.

A voice onscreen says that caterpillars, once they fold up in their cocoons, lose their entire selves and liquefy, leaving behind _imaginal discs_. From these discs come head and body, brain, heart, and wings. Imaginal means _insect_ , but you think _imaginary_ : a caterpillar wrapping itself up and thinking itself into something radically new.

— _split open to reveal_ — 

"What would you remember, when the rest of you turned to goo?" he says, fingers idly brushing along the cilia-fine hair at the nape of your neck. 

Do not say 'you', but think it. Think of the scar on the inside of his palm so long traced over, kissed to the sound of laughter, so often imagined fresh, deep and bleeding, that when you reform, imaginary imago, that same scar would be traced across your new heart forever— so that you might feel a tight ache sometimes when it's beating very fast.

Say instead, "I'd probably still be sore, somehow." Turn off the TV. Ask him to stay. 

Forget, for a while, about everything but the tight line of discomfort etched at the heart of you.

Let go.

The earth widens beneath you like an open mouth and you, like Jonah fleeing from his prophetic destiny, are swallowed up by it. 

* * *

  
Remember lava rock. The weight of the bag light on your shoulder, boots soft on sand then rough on cement as you walk forward to add this bag to the pile in preparation for the day's task.

Mulch for the garden and an attempt at landscaping around the shed by covering bare dirt with something rougher and more interesting.

A Saturday, which means that the girl will be here, soon. You want it done before she arrives, but it won't be.

Cut open the first bag and start pouring out the black rocks. Rake them into place. Think about what it would feel like to be so light— A body netted with holes, extruded into the sea as a white hot glob of lava and there frothed and formed and hardened into something new.

"Do they float, d'you think? Like pumice?" she says, behind you, later, after you have explained about lava under the sea. 

"Maybe. We could go see." She is excited about the experiment, so you go, let her take a handful of cooled lava in her small solid hands and walk down to the rocks. 

Kneel side by side there, with the water reflecting you both, an unlikely pair. Notice that she is watching you, not the water. She is more curious about you than the tower or the tide pools or the wide sweeping scope of the ocean. It's hard to understand what could hold her interest in a man like you, but be grateful for it nonetheless. Wish for more days like this one, with simple work to do and a chance to leave a positive memory in the back of her mind.

_And there shall be in the planting in the shadows a grace and a mercy_ —

Watch her face, in the reflection, watching your face, outside of it. There are so many things that you could say. How many days, after this one, before everything changes? How many more before she is back here, sitting beside you, searching your face for a sign of what lies beneath? 

"One, two, three— Okay, now." 

Hold your fist out, pumice rough.

Let go.

Don't feel light enough to float, but do feel as if you've become part of something. Like a stone lodged in the face of a wall. Like a memory. Hear the wind whistle through you, like a mournful song.

* * *

Remember angels. 

Seraphim, ever praising God. Ezekiel's angels, wings and eyes and wheels within wheels, a body and a chariot and a throne, transparent and shining gems, all the same thing. Not a man, but something alien filtered through the mind of a man who cannot possibly understand.

As a child you liked the idea of love personified as an unknowable and monstrous thing. It seemed familiar to you, then.

Later, you preferred Daniel's angel. A man with shining skin and a voice like the roaring of the sea, arrived to touch knee and lips and say _do not be afraid, be courageous, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words._

Now, realize that there is no reason to believe that they weren't both the same thing. Both angels, both vessels for the Word and the truth and love, filtered through different lenses of understanding. 

Do everything you can, yet still feel the words spill out of you like hope, like spilled ink, like a song you can't shake, like growth and loss and the word of God. 

— _under the earth or above on green fields, or out to sea or in the very air, all shall come to revelation_ —

Above, you know a fox is hunting for his dinner. The grass is wet, and a light rain is falling. Further on, there is a town lit only by fireflies. Somewhere, someone is learning a measure of the truth. 

There is a world within you, and a world without, and they are the same world. Everything in one has brought you to the other. You are here, now, and there is nothing in either world to bring you back to where you were before.

Let go.

You are a man who is not a man, at the bottom and top of a tower, at the beginning and end of the world. Love made you and love sustains you and you don't remember anything anymore.


End file.
